


the rumble where you lay

by gorgona_chingona



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Developing Relationship, During Canon, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:07:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28498791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorgona_chingona/pseuds/gorgona_chingona
Summary: Three defining moments in Yusuf and Nicolò's early years.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 12
Kudos: 127





	the rumble where you lay

**Author's Note:**

> This was intended to be a 100 word drabble using the prompt "thunder" as a casual fic exchange with the lovely mslizzydarcy, but quickly spiraled into three 1k-ish vignettes, tracing the evolution of Joe and Nicky in the early years.
> 
> I'm sure there was a lot of heaviness, grief, and anger they had to process between moments 1 and 2 but I really wanted to sit in that first breath of tentative vulnerability and connection that started it all. Angst might come in future fics but I really wanted a little bit of lavender cotton candy after a very intense year.

The dust in Nicolò’s mouth was bitter and thick with blood. His, somebody else’s, it didn’t matter. His head throbbed as the late afternoon light cascaded over the limp bodies surrounding him and his enemy. Hooves thundered, growing quieter and more distant, the rumble they put in the earth spreading through his body as his heart leapt back into its own rhythm. 

Nicolò was exhausted. The last few months had been an ever-deepening horror, and that was before he learned that he seemingly could not die. He came to Jerusalem with a sense of conviction and found he truly knew nothing about the world or himself. A groan floated out from his lungs as they slowly filled with air beneath him. _Move now_ , he willed his limbs. He lay in the muck. 

Somewhere behind him, a stirring, the scuffing of boots on dirt, a deep sigh. 

_Move now!_ His recently revived heart hammered behind still-mending ribs. His body was terrified of being caught off guard, all muscle memory and animal survival instinct, while his mind refused to come to his aid, justifying the inaction by musing _What’s the worst that can happen? I die?_ He snorted at his own indecision and slowly turned his head to look in the direction of the noise. 

Boots, garments as soiled and torn as his own, a patch of bare flesh bloodied by his sword, knitting itself back into an unmarred abdomen. He stared in grim recognition and moved to rise and defend himself, but a sharp pain shot through his back and took his breath away. Turning his head as far as he could to peer over his shoulder, he saw a gently curved handle rising and falling with his breath. 

“ ‘ana bā’is.”

The voice was quiet and rubbed raw.

Nicolò looked up at the man who had taken his life in his hands over and over again, the man he had killed and seen rise up to meet him as surely as the sun. Warm brown eyes gleamed in golden light and held no malice in them. He had seen this man in the heat of battle, eyes wild, focused, hateful, determined. He had seen this man take his last breaths, eyes desperate, longing, vulnerable, unseeing. The way his opponent looked at him now bore none of their previous animosity or suspicion; the man looked as broken as Nicolò felt.

The man held out a hand.

“Basta. Per favore.” His voice wavered, Nicolò’s dialect unsteady but kind on his tongue.

The plea was unmistakable and Nicolò felt his heart jolt like lightning. 

The man tentatively leaned closer and Nicolò reached out, clasping his forearm with a shaky hand. He couldn’t look away; he winced as he reached up and behind to pull the man’s dagger from his back and the man’s eye twitched, a silent commiseration. 

The two stood staring at each other, the moment stretching between them like a rising tide. 

A quick phrase in his own language, a question, Nicolò guessed based on the man’s quirked eyebrows and expectant gaze. Nicolò shook his head and shrugged his shoulders, at a loss for what should come next. 

He looked around at the carnage, people and horses laying limp like so much meat, disbelieving that he and the man were dead with them only moments ago. A glance at the horizon and the clouds of dust that obscured the retreating horses and masked the city. The whole scene felt like a dream and his mouth ached with thirst.  
He fumbled around in the dirt where he fell and found his waterskin and rations. He gave the waterskin a shake and sighed in relief to feel it was more than half full. He looked up at the man who had haunted him since their first death at each other’s hand, the man who had now fixed him with the most curious stare, and held the waterskin out. The man reached for it, eyes still locked with Nicolò’s, and accepted it with a gentle nod.

Nicolò watched the man’s throat as he took two hard gulps; he had split the skin of this man and there he stood, gingerly pouring a small amount of water into his cupped palm and splashing his face as if they weren’t just moments ago ending each other for the seventh time. 

“Chokran.”

He returned the waterskin with another nod and Nicolò drank deep. He continued with a few phrases, at least one of which was in a totally different language than he’d been speaking previously and Nicolò squinted at him, desperate to understand. The man gestured forlornly around, between the two of them, and then toward a copse in the distance. Nicolò stared at the trees and then back at the man, then pointed at the horizon where the little grove waited. The man mirrored him then took a few slow steps in that direction.

Another phrase in his own tongue then a tentative word in Nicolò’s.

“Ven.”

The men walked in silence, uncertain what they were heading towards. They looked at each other openly, both men searching wordlessly for answers in the other’s face. Nicolò was sure there was nothing behind him that he wanted. He peered forward into the shade of the copse. Olive. Then, a rustling to his right as the man stopped and dug in a small bag at his hip. He fought the urge to step away, to reach for his dagger, to treat every move as a threat. 

He held his breath and watched the man’s slender fingers pluck out a large date from a neatly tied cloth. The man’s forehead wrinkled with worry and he held it out for Nicolò, who took it and stared at the sticky fruit with a mix of confusion and reverence. He turned it over in his hand for a moment, then looked up into warm brown eyes, unable to stop tears from welling up in his own.

“Nicolò,” he said, tapping his hand on his chest urgently. “Nicolò. Mi chiamo Nicolò.”

He watched the man expectantly as he pulled a date for himself from the cloth and unhurriedly tucked the bundle back into his bag. 

“Nicolò,” the man repeated, his voice thoughtful and soft. He took a bite of the date and savoured the chewing, eyes locked on the olive grove ahead of them. Then, the man turned to meet Nicolò’s searching gaze with a soft and open expression; Nicolò would’ve said the man was smiling if it wasn’t for the fatigue in his jaw and the crease in his brow. He pointed at himself with the half-eaten date. 

“Yusuf,” he replied, and popped the rest of the date in his mouth. 

“Yusuf,” Nicolò whispered, and he swore he saw a smile dimple Yusuf’s cheek for a moment before vanishing like the setting sun.

He placed the date in his mouth whole and let it linger on his tongue like a sacrament. He had never tasted anything as sweet.

~~~

The gulls wheeled high overhead and called out to each other with abandon; Yusuf’s easy laugh floated up to meet them as Nicolò regaled him with a childhood story of trying to catch the family goat without letting his parents know it had escaped. Nicolò spoke animatedly in the comfortable mix of Ligurian and Arabic they’d evolved into over the three years of travelling together, with the addition of the pidgin language Yusuf and many of the merchants and sailors they worked with used as they sailed around the Mediterranean that Nicolò took to naturally.

They sat together on the low dock, Nicolò’s feet dangling in the water as he spread his arms open, wide eyes fixed on the goat in his mind, and rattled off a string of panicked swears and pleas so fast that Yusuf couldn’t pick out any words beyond “cazzo”, “perché” and “maladetta capra”. Yusuf looked up at his friend fondly as he wiggled his broad shoulders in an attempt to corral his memory goat, their shared laughter gently bouncing Yusuf’s head where it rested on Nicolò’s thigh. 

The midday sun was insistent and warm, its light reflecting off the water and Nicolò’s eyes in turn; the cool grey of his friend’s cat eyes reminded him of a full moon rising and Yusuf hoped that the extra heat in his cheeks could be attributed to giddiness and humidity. He held his aching stomach and sighed through the end of Nicolò’s story, trying to imagine this steadfast man as a nervous boy and failing. All he could see was Nicolò smiling, Nicolò pushing his hair out of his face with a broad palm, Nicolò settling back on his hands satisfied with a tale well told and staring out at ships moored in the distance. 

Yusuf thought back to being a nervous boy himself and how his heart rumbled and flitted when he heard Nicolò groan in his sleep in a neighbouring hammock on whatever ship they were working, or how his belly spun like the seagulls overhead when he woke and found their feet had tangled together in the night near their campfire. 

He dreamed of him in those early days, flashes of battle and moments of miserable rest outside the walls of Jerusalem, alongside glimpses of two women on horseback, laughing and racing across a steppe in some unfamiliar land. He had no idea how these dreams would obsess him then, but night after night Yusuf woke breathless with these three faces floating behind his eyes.

After months of battle and then months again of travel with his new companion, they managed to piece together that they shared more than just a strange unwillingness to die; they shared a mind, after a fashion. These women haunted them as they haunted each other. Maybe they were as real as the sun on his skin and the firm leg nestled under his neck. Maybe their paths would cross one day, but Yusuf was content enough for now to sit with his dear friend and wait for their ship to dock and carry them onward with the next tide. Content enough, but Yusuf had never been one to settle.

“Have you any new dreams of our cousins?”

“They still ride far east of us but that land seems so vast. There is a new determination in their pace, as if they have a destination where before they were content to wander. But that is only a guess.”

“I think you may be right.” Yusuf sat up on his elbows and looked back down the dock towards the village, a slow current of people and carts moving to and fro. “I wonder if we’ll see them one day across a marketplace somewhere and just know. I wonder if they speak of us as we do of them.”

His back was to Nicolò but he could feel his friend’s gaze settle on his shoulders.

“I believe they do.”

The noise of the port washed over them as Yusuf stared ahead, unseeing, trying to gather the courage to speak. _Ask him. Ask him now._ His heartbeat thundered in his ears and made him a little dizzy as the words danced up his throat.

“I still dream of you. But it feels different from our dreams of them. It feels different from when I dreamed before I learned your name.” Yusuf took a breath and closed his eyes, praying his voice remained steady. “Do y— do you dream of me?” 

Behind him, a stirring, the sloshing of water and a creak of wood, a deep sigh.

“Basta. Per fervore.” 

Yusuf held his eyes shut tight for fear that Nicolò would have no place for his foolish heart and he would be walking down the dock and away. 

“Look at me.” Nicolò’s voice was much closer, and a smile wove its way through the hush that settled between them.

Yusuf turned his head and tipped it back, and when he opened his eyes, he felt he was bathed in moonlight. Nicolò had leaned close, eyes wet, and his soft smirk told Yusuf he was indeed a fool, but one whose heart was safe despite it all. 

“I do. Every night. Every night, you are in my dreams.”

Yusuf smiled wide, unable to believe the gifts their god had given them, as Nicolò leaned even closer and placed a gentle kiss right on his teeth. They rubbed noses and laughed; Yusuf shifted and sat up to face Nicolò and slid a hand along his neck to cup his jaw. Yusuf wanted to compose a poem for this moment, to honor the beauty that Nicolò had brought to him, to paint his love with the richest colors and wrap him in silk. His heart hammered so hard he thought it might burst because none of these simple things would be enough to make Nicolò know the truth of his devotion. 

And then Nicolò turned his head, placed his hand over Yusuf’s, and pressed a kiss to his palm. He heard the thunder of Nicolò’s heart beating so close to his own and when Nicolò’s eyes met his, Yusuf knew peace. They met in a slow and lingering kiss, oaths melting on their tongues, and Yusuf swore that day he learned the meaning of halawa.

~~~

_The whinnying and whickering of horses, their hooves stomping restlessly on hardwood. A soft voice to calm them. The creak of waves on hull. A flash of lamplight. The deck, two women standing arm in arm against the sharp sea spray, staring out at a distant silhouette, its signal fire a pin prick on the horizon. A dry rumble of thunder in the warm darkness —_

Nicolò gasped awake, and tried to sit up but was half-restrained by Yusuf’s leg thrown across his hip. 

“The Pharos,” Yusuf mumbled as he abruptly pulled his face from their pillows. He was breathing heavily and placed his hand on his man’s chest to ground himself. “Nico, the Pharos. Mashallah.”

“Mashallah,” Nicolò echoed, slumping back onto the bed, “finally.”

The blue light of early morning filtered into their room, painting shadows up the walls that mirrored the high clouds gathering over Alexandria. Yusuf sat upright and rubbed his face roughly, trying to banish the sleep from his eyes. Nicolò watched him shift around restlessly in the near-darkness. 

“How long do you think we have? Do you think they’re here already? I’m due to receive some rugs today from Ayman but I suppose I could delay —” He trailed off.

Nicolò ran his hand slowly down Yusuf’s back and made a low noise in his throat.

“Lay with me. The sun has not yet risen. I promise there is time.”

Yusuf peered over his shoulder, then reclined back on an elbow to face his love but his mind showed no sign of slowing. With a lazy finger he drew spirals up and down Nicolò’s arm as he thought out loud. 

“Do you think they have planned to stay with us? Once we find each other, I mean? I don’t want to be presumptuous. They may not even like us. They might just be here in passing, a coincidence.”

Yusuf and Nicolò sailed around the Mediterranean for a few years learning each other’s languages, customs, and hearts, all the while waiting for enough of a hint as to where these mysterious women of the steppes were roaming so they could learn more of this power that linked them. After a time, they decided to settle down and wait for their cousins, as they had come to think of them, to find them. They would be the fixed point for the beautiful nomads that visited their dreams. 

Alexandria seemed a logical choice: a North African port city with an ancient and enormous landmark, with significant trading connections to Genoa so between the two of them, they could always find a friend of a friend to give them a day’s work or a hot meal. Having lived there for months with no clear sign that the women were moving towards their beacon, Yusuf suggested they open a stall near the harbor in view of the old lighthouse with the hope that it might feature more prominently in any fragments of their life that the women were seeing. They mainly traded in textiles but made a decent reputation for themselves in the city for their decorative calligraphy; Nicolò often had requests to illuminate manuscripts and Yusuf would transcribe epic poems and tokens of affection alike with equal care. It was a good and peaceful life they were creating together. 

Yet, night would fall and their friendly haunting would begin, bringing with it worry and longing for answers about why they could not die. The women acted with purpose, behaved as though they knew the why and the how of their immortality. If not, then certainly they carried with them the same questions Yusuf and Nicolò did. If answers were not to be found, then perhaps companionship would.

“If they dream of us the way we dream of them, it is no coincidence. They search for us,” Nicolò replied, the certainty in his words masking the anxiety in his heart. He thought of hiding his fears to be strong for Yusuf in this moment but the same thoughts raced through his mind. What if the only two other people in the world who knew what it meant to live without end turned them away? 

Yusuf stopped tracing the freckles on Nicolò’s shoulder and gazed at him through the curtain of darkness.

“You do not need to be certain of this. The only thing I am certain of is that centuries will pass and still I will be by your side. That is a gift which I strive every day to be worthy of.”

Nicolò cupped his love’s cheek and Yusuf pressed a kiss to his palm.

“How do you always know?”

“You have a very animated face, ya amar. It couldn’t be more obvious.”

Snorts of laughter quickly muffled by a press of lips.

“Pick up the rugs. I can make a short trip around the city to see if I notice anything, and I’ll gather some extra food for dinner. Then we’ll spend all day at the harbor watching for their ship.”

“I’ll get some more blankets from Rabi too. I want them to feel at home if they stay here.”

“Don’t fret, orsacchiotto. We have sufficient blankets. ”

“Are you afraid they will be too comfortable and you’ll never have me alone again?”

Yusuf growled happily as Nicolò rolled on top of him and nipped at his neck with playful abandon. The two shared drowsy kisses for a time, enjoying the aimless early hours when even the dawn birds slept. Yusuf suddenly pulled away with a gasp of inspiration, pressing an elegant finger to Nicolò’s lips as if he was worried he’d lose his place in the story of their kiss.

“Before I forget, if you go to get eggs — “

“I will ask Auntie Nishat if she has any dates.”

Yusuf drew in a shaky breath and Nicolò could see the joy welling up in his true love’s eyes, sparkling like a star close enough to touch.

“Ayyoooh. How did you— you remembered.” He fondly rubbed his love’s earlobe between thumb and forefinger. “So sentimental.”

“You act as if it were possible to forget.”

A slow dawn broke over the prow of a ship approaching on a rising tide and the two men made loving use of their time.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please forgive any errors as I'm not fluent in any dialect of either Italian or Arabic.
> 
> ‘ana bā’is. - I am miserable.  
> Basta. Per fervore. - Enough. Please.  
> Chokran. - Thank you.  
> Ven. - Come.  
> Mi chiamo... - I'm called...  
> halawa - sweetness  
> ya amar - my moon/the moon  
> orsacchiotto - bear with an affectionate diminuative, kinda like teddy bear


End file.
